


Twenty minutes, before breakfast

by Molly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-05
Updated: 2008-04-05
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coffee and puttering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty minutes, before breakfast

**Author's Note:**

> For the spnflashfic "downtime" challenge. Many thanks to luzdeestrellas for beta and whatnot. She's pretty useful. This is set before _Jus in Bello_, after _Fresh Blood_, I would say. This is morning stuff, which I wish we saw more of.

There's coffee on the night stand and sun in his eyes when Dean wakes up. He pushes himself up against the headboard, lets the blanket fall to his waist, and rubs his eyes. Just from breathing he can tell the coffee's black as road tar, and probably about that thick. His mouth quirks up as his vision clears. His brother loves him.

He finishes half the cup without even getting out of bed. The shower is running behind the half-closed bathroom door, and the remote is close to hand; no need to rush. He flips through the middle of a morning show, and lingers for a few minutes on _Little House on the Prairie_ before moving on to find some news. They have better luck finding work with local than with national, as a rule, but he watches for five minutes and nothing jumps off the screen. He tries The Weather Channel next. Not much in the way of current events there, but the National Weather Service is as good as a demon GPS nowadays.

The water shuts off in the bathroom, and Dean gets out of bed. He finishes his coffee in one long gulp, and investigates Sam's, all lonely and helpless on the other side of the clock radio. He drinks that, too -- lukewarm, light and sweet -- and burps so loud their neighbors can probably hear it. He hopes so; he certainly got an earful of their marital problems last night. They knew words Dean hadn't even heard of; impressive, but Dean prefers sleep to education.

He turns the radio on, finds somebody preaching hellfire and damnation in a voice that could call anybody back from the pit, and turns it up as high as it'll go. After a moment's thought, he tips the clock up on its face and shifts it so the little speakers press right up against the wall. Petty, maybe, but hey. It's Sunday morning in the Bible belt. A-fucking-men.

He's got his T-shirt off and his shaving kit in hand by the time Sam pushes out of the bathroom, every hair on his head flipped out in a different direction and a cloud of steam billowing out behind him as he goes to his bed. Sam gives Dean a smile, and Dean gives Sam's hair a smile, and Sam's smile folds into a glare somewhere in the middle. He rolls his eyes and drops his towel as Dean takes his place in the shower.

Most of the hot water's gone, but Dean doesn't mind too much. There's a lot of Sam to wash, after all, and since Dean sits two feet away from him twenty-four/seven, he's happiest when Sam makes a good job of it. It's hot enough in the steam to make the cool water feel pretty nice, anyway. He knocks off the dirt he was too tired to look for last night, and lathers up his hair with Citrus Breeze motel shampoo out of the sample bottle he finds in the soap dish. He comes out clean and more awake than he was when he went in - a small price to pay for a head that smells like an orange.

He's out of shaving cream and toothpaste, so he steals Sam's, and after a second's consideration he steals Sam's razor, too. He's been using the one in his own kit for about a month now, and the edge is mostly gone. Not that he doesn't look his best with a little manly stubble, but he likes what's left of his nicked up face and wants to keep it for whatever time he's got.

Out in the room, Sam's turned down the preaching and flipped it to talk radio, some ramped up red-stater with a hard-on for God and country. He's sitting at the little table under the window with the flimsy local paper, pretending to do the crossword, but in a few minutes he'll start muttering under his breath and glaring at the radio, and in ten he'll be waving his hands and snarling about the war. The _wrong_ war, Dean won't say out loud, because it's pretty fucking hilarious to watch his brother hype himself up to a heart attack over the symptoms when he's never liked fighting the disease.

Sam watches CNN and The Daily Show and votes -- when the FBI lets him -- for Democrats or Libertarians or Independents, Dean thinks, but he's never really cared enough to ask. Dean watches X-Files reruns and B-grade horror movies, and votes a straight anti-Hellspawn ticket. With holy water, salt and Latin when times are hard; with magic bullets, whenever he can get them.

Last night's clothes go into the laundry bag, right after today's clothes come out of it. Dean pulls on a T-shirt and jeans, and digs for a pair of socks with no holes in the toes. He eyes Sam's bag for a second, but Sam catches him, not quite as wrapped up in the political scene or the crossword as he'd looked. They'll have to hit a thrift store pretty soon, someplace low-rent and low-tech enough not to have security cameras. Before they achieved their well-deserved (if poorly rewarded) celebrity with law enforcement, they could have gone to an outlet mall, or hell, even the Gap. Sammy would have felt right at home. These days are second-hand days, though, and they take what they can get.

The sun's higher when Dean's bags are packed, and Sam's griping at the radio has worn down to a vicious mutter. All Dean has to do to get Sam moving is threaten to pack for him. Sam's obsession with privacy, more than his freakishly long legs and his masculine shortcomings, proves conclusively that he's either an alien or adopted. Possibly both.

"Don't forget your shaving kit," Dean says, giving Sam a shove toward the bathroom when everything's gathered and waiting at the door.

Sam comes back with it, no complaints. He does yank Dean's wallet out of the back of his jeans, though. He fishes inside for a ten, and puts it on the night stand under the glass ashtray, next to the clock radio, next to the lamp.

"You just downgraded lunch from Arby's to McDonald's," Dean informs him, grabbing his wallet back.

"I'm just covering our tracks, Dean. Housekeeping remembers guests who don't tip."

"I bet they also remember guests who show up at 3 am in the baddest car this town has ever seen, covered in blood and gravedust and bitching about who used the last of the kerosene and didn't replace it."

"You, by the way," Sam says. "And the only way they'll give a damn about any of that is if we don't tip."

"Maybe _I'll_ eat at Arby's, and you can eat the satisfaction of doing right by the service industry. Unless you want to take five of that back to make up for the raunchy sheets. You ready to go?"

Sam shoulders his bag, and Dean's bag, and the laundry bag; Dean grabs the bag full of the tools of their trade, a spare blanket out of the closet, and two unused motel towels. Sam stares up at the ceiling through it all, breath puffing out of his nose in prissy little flares.

"What?" Dean says, eyes wide.

"You forgot the beds, the pillows, the TV, the table and the chair."

"Like we could pick up a decent broadcast signal in the car," Dean snorts, rolling his eyes just to make Sam smile. Sam does, clearly fighting it, which makes Dean break into a wide grin. "On the other hand," he goes on, and snatches a pillow off the nearest bed. Always nice to have something to put between your head and the window, after all.

"Unbelievable," Sam says to the air above him. He shakes his head and stalks off toward the parking lot and the car.

Dean watches him go, tall and broad, casting a long shadow across the asphalt in the morning light. He feels his grin soften into a real smile, now that Sam can't see it; Sam looks good. Dean's proud of that, of the ease in Sam's walk and the retreat of the dark, bruised circles from under Sam's eyes. They sleep better now; things are better between them now. He's got a handle on what Sam needs, a brother instead of a martyr, and that's okay with Dean. It's not too much to ask for, and it's not that hard to give. The circles under his own eyes are a little bit lighter now, too.

Sam opens the passenger side door of the car and tosses their bags into the back seat. The door creaks and slams and the window rolls down, Sam's arm slung casually over the door, his head tilted back against the seat. Time to go, Dean tells himself, a weird nostalgia for this stupid room in this no-name motel creeping over him.

Two-thirty-five. Not a great night, but a pretty good morning, overall. One that he kind of misses, now that it's gone. "Thanks," Dean says to the empty, sun-striped room, and the room gives back a warm, waiting silence. He ducks his head and laughs a little, kind of embarrassed, but not too much. Still smiling, he shuts the door behind him, and turns back to Sam and the car.

When he slides behind the wheel, Sam's looking at him; his eyes are sharp and bright and interested. "You're in a good mood," he says.

Dean nods. He's got Sam; he's got breath in his body, concrete under his wheels, and a hundred-thirty days like this one on the road ahead. Somewhere up there, maybe half an hour off, they might even stop for pancakes. "It's a beautiful morning, Sam," Dean says seriously, because pancakes are no laughing matter.

"If you say so."

"I say so, and I'm your big brother, so what I say goes."

Sam tips his head back and laughs, and that's another thing worth smiling about, right there.


End file.
